International and Development Education. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012. xvi, 215 pp. (Tables, figures.) US$90.00, cloth. ISBN 978-1-137-00287-7.
One danger for studies of regionalization is that they can become a triumphant (and tedious) parade of acronyms denoting organizations, committees and agreements. The implication, then, is that regionalization is proceeding apace, that there is a shared vision and that goals are well defined and being achieved, or will be with due passage of time. This volume avoids such traps by its use of critical approaches both at the country level and in discussing the broader trends in the region. It is arranged into three sections (each containing four chapters) under the headings: Conceptual Issues; Country Studies; and Regulatory and Governance Dimensions.
The opening chapters provide an accessible introduction to thinking about the dauntingly complex terrain of regionalization. Deane E. Neubauer sketches the key dynamics in the region. Jane Knight sets out a series of definitions of terms that are used (not always consistently) in the field and proposes a scale of types of interaction ascending from weakest to strongest: cooperation, coordination, convergence, integration. She suggests there are three basic approaches—functional, organizational and political—and lists some thirty examples arranged under these headings. Rounding out the section on conceptual issues, in their respective chapters, Molly Lee and Miki Sugimura provide useful snapshots of the array of bodies involved in regionalization and the types of activities they carry out. It is a complex web they delineate well, though a separate glossary of acronyms would have been a welcome addition to the volume.
In section 2, the country studies of Japan, China, Indonesia and the Philippines each provide useful insights. Wen Wen discusses a Chinese approach to regionalization—“province leading with the state approving”—noting that some Chinese provinces are as powerful as some smaller state economies in the region. Anthony Welch studies the challenges facing Indonesia in meeting domestic demand and the limits this places on its regional activities. Akiyoshi Yonezawa and Arthur Meerman look at the demographic challenges facing Japan, and its role in multilateral initiatives in East Asia. Regina Ordonez examines the responses of the Philippine Commission on Higher Education to the global labour market and the lure of overseas employment.
The third section considers regulatory issues at multi-country and regional levels. Commentators observe that countries in the region have more differences than commonalities but that, on the other hand, they have more in common with each other than with Western countries. The editors of this volume distinguish two phases of regionalism. The first, spanning roughly 1950 to 1980, featured cooperative interactions between exclusive peer-country groupings in the fields of trade, security and education. The second phase, dating from the 1980s to the present, features broader-based inclusive groupings and is more characterized by the philosophies of neoliberalism, deregulation and marketization.
In this context, Ka Ho Mok refers to the “tango” between cooperation and competition, as several countries strive to position themselves as education hubs, in the quest both for income generation and for exerting “soft power” through enhanced prestige. He explores the prospects for regulatory regionalism noting that, while such developments are in an early phase, there is the potential to facilitate new models of governance, including “network governance” to address the increasingly transnationalized nature of education offerings. Molly Lee looks at recent events in the restructuring of university governance and how these affect institutional autonomy in eleven countries. In cases where there is greater pressure to justify university budgets in relation to national and local priorities—and the benefits for taxpayers of the country—international projects may be seen as a second or third-order option.
A routine evaluative approach is to compare Asian regionalization projects with those taking place in the European Union. Quite apart from the question of whether this is a useful comparator, the editors point out that recent reports suggest the European project is having its own difficulties and that domestic education is largely unchanged despite numerous agreements, high-level conferences, intergovernmental meetings and inspiring rhetoric. Similar observations are made for Asia. One author notes, for example, that the University Mobility in Asia and the Pacific (UMAP) Credit Transfer Scheme, the Asian regional version of the European credit transfer system, is seldom used by institutions. This despite the fact that 34 countries and some 350 higher education institutions (HEI) have joined UMAP and the scheme has operated for more than twenty years.
John Hawkins analyzes the centripetal and centrifugal forces acting to promote or frustrate the regionalization of education. Centripetal forces include: economic and prestige/“soft-power” incentives to strengthening the profile and role of the region in the education sphere; and the mutual benefits of facilitating the mobility of students and academics within the region. Centrifugal forces include in particular: the wide variety of linguistic and ethnic diversity; major variations in systems for admissions, grading and credit; differences in curriculum; lack of common QA standards; lack of commitment at the level of government and HEI; and a lack of financial resources for the organization, promotion and follow-through on regional cooperation projects. There are also historical disputes and potential military tensions between the most powerful countries in the region: China, Japan and Korea. The concluding chapter by Hawkins, Mok and Neubauer draws together the themes and observations of the book, and points to directions for future research.
This volume is valuable for those who want: an introduction to (and disentangling of) concepts in the regionalization of education; an outline of key organizations and developments; illuminating country studies of Japan, China, Indonesia and the Philippines; and an assessment of the current state of play and factors influencing the likely outcomes of higher education regionalization in the Asia Pacific. As such it is recommended for researchers, students and those concerned with the development and analysis of policy development in the field of international higher education in Asia and beyond.
Grant McBurnie
Independent Scholar, Carnegie, Australia
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